President Taft's offers (March, 1910):—

Personally, I do not see any reason why matters of national honor should not be referred to Courts of Arbitration as matters of private or national property are. I know that is going further than most men are willing to go, but I do not see why questions of honor should not be submitted to tribunals composed of men of honor who understand questions of national honor, to abide by their decisions as well as in other questions of difference arising between nations.

(December, 1910):

If we can negotiate and put through private agreements with some other nation to abide by the adjudication of International Arbitration Courts in every issue which cannot be settled by negotiations, no matter what it involves, whether honor, territory, or money, we shall have made a long step forward by demonstrating that it is possible for two nations at least to establish between them the same system which, through the process of law, has existed between individuals under Government.

Sir Edward Grey's reply (March 13th, 1911):-

When agreement of that kind, so sweeping as it is, is proposed to us, we shall be delighted to have such a proposal.

The event of the month has been, without doubt, Sir Edward Grey's great reply to Mr. Taft's great overture. This is one of those strokes which, if they succeed, make a new world. Like all great strokes, it seems very simple when once struck. Only those who know the doubts and hesitations of Foreign Offices can realize how big this policy is. Only those who know that atmosphere can realize how difficult it will be to carry it through.

For the moment the world is lost in an admiration which is not without a touch of perplexity. Sir Edward Grey has not prepared us for so great a move. He has been a good Foreign Minister, because he has been a safe Foreign Minister. He has kept the peace at a time when peace has been most important for the world. He can say, after Napoleon III., but with far more sincerity-"the British Em-pire is Peace." For he has kept the British Empire free from that spirit of arrogance and aggression which, ten years ago, nearly led to a combination of the whole civilized world against her. He has kept us out of adventures, and freedom from foreign adventures is almost a necessary condition for a vigorous policy of home reform. But if he has been sane and safe, he has seemed to many ardent spirits to be also cold and slow. He has not hitherto shown much care for those vestal fires of freedom and humanity which, if they are to burn at all, must be kept alight on British hearths. His performance at The Hague Conference of 1907 came perilously near to failure, and proved a sore anti-climax to the very noble utterance of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman which immediately preceded it. It is not clear that he has used our understanding with Russia to advance the cause of freedom by a single inch at St. Petersburg. On the Congo and in Macedonia his course has been straight and steady, and with the help of events he has attained to something like success; but his best admirers have missed in his speeches and despatches the true Liberal touch-that touch of passion for liberty which inspired the British Foreign Office under Palmerston.

But Palmerston was not a safe For

eign Minister; and Sir Edward Grey has proved himself in that respect more livable than Palmerston. No false pride has prevented him from withdrawing from false positions; no restless ambition, either for himself or for his country, has driven him to extravagant claims and pretensions. He has kept the peace, and it is, therefore, in the proper development of things that he should become, side by side with Mr. Taft, the pioneer of peace before the world. The whole British Progressive Party welcome him in this new rôle and promise him their best support in carrying it to success. Sir Edward Grey has made no enemies. The feelings of the strongest critics on his own side have never gone further than the feelings of friends who were disappointed because his achievements had fallen short of their hopes. They rejoice now to see Mr. Gladstone's chosen apprentice rising to the heights of his great master.

For

Sir Edward Grey's proposal has had the rare power of at once affecting the situation both at home and abroad. Abroad it has arrested the attention of the whole world, now half-bewildered and half-fascinated by its novelty and daring. Some nations are suspicious; others are jealous; others are still blinking in the sudden radiance of a new ideal. Europe is too far broken

to militarism to believe in release from her servitude; but she stirs uneasily within her iron cage. It is in the New World-in the United States and Canada-that the hope of support in this crusade lies. It is there that the challenge finds an echo, and the belief in peace. still a vital power, comes to grips with the invading menace of the war-spirit.

At home the speech came in the nick of time to ease a very awkward and difficult political situation. Throughout the months of February and early

It was

March the supporters of the Govern- . ment were suffering from a vague unrest. The rumor of a coming increase in the Estimates had gone forth; and it was received with a sudden, passionate, outbreak of impatience. not for this that the Progressive Parties had won a second laborious victory in one year. It was not for this that they had toiled day and night to carry through the great Budget of 1909 -not merely to provide fresh food for the insatiable maw of the War-god. They saw ahead of them an Exchequer tied to the War Office and the Admiralty, the failure of the social reform policy, the increase of Imperialism abroad, the decline and division of the Progressive movement at home. The official apologists threw all the blame on Germany, but those apologies were gravely weakened by the revelation that in 1909 Germany had been right in her rejected explanations of the notorious acceleration of ships, and Great Britain had been wrong in her attitude of rejection. For the moment, at any rate, Germany seemed to be in the right, and the Admiralty to be saddled with the blame. So strong and deep was this feeling, that it seemed probable that the Government would be saved from defeat in the division lobbies only by Tory support.

It was at this moment that Sir Edward Grey opened a new vision which seemed to reduce all these quarrels to their proper place in the picture. The cynics called it a debating triumph; but it is the special excellence of Parliamentary government that a move be at once a debating triumph and a great international event. The difficulty of the Government in this case represented a real clash of great forces, and the speech of Sir Edward Grey represented a victory for the forces that make for peace. Into the midst of a squabble between those who would build four Dreadnoughts-the

Radical policy-those who would build five-the Government policy-and those who would build six-the Tory policy-came a proposal which might, in the end, reduce Dreadnoughts altogether to the vanishing point. Mr. Balfour, it is true, justified his support of the policy in the eyes of the war party by arguing that an Arbitration Treaty with America would have no effect on armaments. "We do not build against the United States." True, but Mr. Balfour there missed Sir Edward Grey's greatest point-the power of the example. Public opinion, greater than Mr. Balfour, has risen to it. The people know that war and peace cannot live together. They realize that the extension of the reign of peace is, in the end, the only road to a reduction of armaments. They know that a beginning must be made by some nation, and they are willing that that nation should be Great Britain.

At home, therefore, the effect of Sir Edward Grey's speech was to save the Government forces from a threatened cleavage on the details of the Naval Estimates, and to unite them on a new policy of peace abroad. For the moment the triumph has been complete. The debates on the Naval Estimates have sunk into insignificance, and the columns of the Press are filled instead with peans on Sir Edward Grey's policy from Bishops and Ministers as well as politicians. But the Government will be wise if they take warning from their recent experience. Great as is the relief now, far greater will be the wrath of the party if they find themselves deceived. Having put their hand to the plough, the Government must not turn back. The new policy must be pursued with energy. There must be none of that fatal lethargy which fell on the Foreign Office immediately that there came a question of translating Sir Henry Camp

bell-Bannerman's pious wishes into action. The Progressives in the country are not in a mood to be fooled again. They will look forward-I hope and believe with justification-to seeing the fruits of this new policy reflected in the Estimates of next year. But otherwise the policy is dust and ashes. For a peace policy is useless unless we are to have a peace expenditure.

Will it

It seems at the moment as if this expectation would certainly be fulfilled. From the point of view of immediate expenditure, the important matter is the effect of Sir Edward Grey's speech on Germany. be taken there as a move towards peace or war? Some observers are of opinion that the German Government will see in the speech nothing but the threat of a new alliance against her. "Russia has failed England," she will say, according to this version, "and France is obviously a weak friend. England is seeking new alliances. Like Canning, when he met the Spanish invasion of Portugal by recognizing the independence of the revolted South American Spanish colonies, England is 'calling in the New World to redress the balance of the Old.'" In other words, the "Wilhelmstrasse" will see in Sir Edward's new move nothing but a reply to the far-bruited conversations of Potsdam.

Even if this were so, it would not necessarily be a bad result. If these interpreters have really formed a correct estimate of the German Foreign Office, if they are right in their familiar and frequent conjectures that Germany keeps no faith, respects no virtue, and fears nothing except force, then, along this beaten, worldly track, Sir Edward Grey has done a wise thing. It would be waste of breath to woo such a suitor. In such a case, the best course is always to show that you have an alternative.

Just as in